The present invention relates to apparatus for winding plastic line from a supply reel onto a take-up spool.
It is often necessary to acquire relatively large reels of filamentry material and to wind the filamentry material, or line, from the supply reel onto a spool. Sucn apparatus has, in general, been proposed including a support for the supply reel, a support and drive for a take-up spool, and some guide device or devices for the line between the supply reel and the take-up spool.
Examples of apparatus as above described are shown in Knowles U.S. Pat. No. 3,625,443, Kaminstein U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,886, and Jorgenson U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,155, wherein motor drives are utilized, and there is also known in the prior art a construction of this general type in which the take-up spool is rotated by hand; see Butler U.S. Pat. No. 1,877,444.
The prior art which is known, however, has been deficient in a number of particulars.
Some are of greater complexity, and therefore of greater costs than is desirable. For example, Knowles U.S. Pat. No. 3,625,443 provides for the successive winding of plural take-up spools mounted on the same axis, and further includes a complex control apparatus for causing the line to shift from one take-up spool to the other. In Kaminstein U.S. Pat. No. 4,007,886, there is no provision for the level winding of the line on the take-up spool, resulting in an uneven laying of the line on the take-up spool; Jorgenson U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,155 is similarly deficient. Where there has been provided a level winding mechanism, this has added to the expense and complexity of the apparatus.
In the above mentioned patent to Butler, U.S. Pat. No. 1,877,444, while a comparatively simple device is provided, requiring the manual manipulation of a guide device for laying of a fishing line, the line is laid upon a take-up spool or reel which is hand-driven, thereby requiring considerable dexterity for the simultaneous movement of both hands of the operator. Further, this apparatus provided a complex and expensive take-up spool or reel construction.
Also known in the prior art is Lowery U.S. Pat. No. 3,514,048, directed to a cable feed apparatus for feeding cable as it is wound onto or withdrawn from a drum, there being no disclosure of a pair of spools or reels, the apparatus apparently being intended to pay out cable, and to then rewind cable the thus paid out. This apparatus has a guide tube which is mounted on a disk rotatable about a horizontal axis, but there is no suggestion that the guide tube has any function in connection with level laying of the cable.